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If electric cars take off and everyone starts charging them at home, you can be pretty certain we'll see a huge spike in the electricity usage of the average Am

by sgk284 15y ago

If electric cars take off and everyone starts charging them at home, you can be pretty certain we'll see a huge spike in the electricity usage of the average American home.

kaybe 15y ago
We should really be looking at energy usage then and not electricity. (Is heating with electricity even that common in the US?)
- pohl 15y ago
  Common and recommended. See "heat pump".
- ja27 15y ago
  It's really common in warmer areas like Florida. Most of us have heat pumps with an emergency "heat strip" resistive heating element that's really expensive to run.
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  He requested an energy audit from his utility, Nstar, to help cut his power use. ... He replaced his electric dryer with a gas-powered one. Tell me again why electric cars are supposed to be superior to those powered by gasoline? OK, I'm being snarky, but I really think this underscores the fact that supporting electric cars has become more of a religion than a rational conclusion based on any real evidence. Regarding energy usage, it drives me crazy that people fixate to such a degree on, e.g., the heat coming off of lightbulbs. In climates that require heating, this isn't waste: it's heating the house. In the winter, there's no reason to go around turning off all your lights and appliances. It all goes into heating your house, so the only cost is the difference in price between electric heat vs. oil/gas. So claiming that a decrease in energy draw for a light of X% translates into an X% improvement in energy usage is just wrong. (granted that in the summer, A/C must work in the other direction; but my complaint is that our discourse never approaches this level of nuance)
  - kaybe 15y ago
    It depends on where the electricity and the gasoline come from, clearly. If the electricity comes from burning coal, not so great, if it comes from wind turbines, great! You can even use the car batteries as storage. And if the gasoline is made from biological materials (3rd generation or above, which means that food production doesn't suffer for it) - great! If it's made from oil, however.. never mind global warming, we'll run out of cheap oil soon enough. All these things are being considered, and the most economic solution will win, I hope. How is this not a rational conclusion base on real evidence?

by sgk284 15y ago

If electric cars take off and everyone starts charging them at home, you can be pretty certain we'll see a huge spike in the electricity usage of the average American home.

kaybe 15y ago

We should really be looking at energy usage then and not electricity. (Is heating with electricity even that common in the US?)

pohl 15y ago
Common and recommended. See "heat pump".
ja27 15y ago
It's really common in warmer areas like Florida. Most of us have heat pumps with an emergency "heat strip" resistive heating element that's really expensive to run.
CWuestefeld 15y ago
He requested an energy audit from his utility, Nstar, to help cut his power use. ... He replaced his electric dryer with a gas-powered one. Tell me again why electric cars are supposed to be superior to those powered by gasoline? OK, I'm being snarky, but I really think this underscores the fact that supporting electric cars has become more of a religion than a rational conclusion based on any real evidence. Regarding energy usage, it drives me crazy that people fixate to such a degree on, e.g., the heat coming off of lightbulbs. In climates that require heating, this isn't waste: it's heating the house. In the winter, there's no reason to go around turning off all your lights and appliances. It all goes into heating your house, so the only cost is the difference in price between electric heat vs. oil/gas. So claiming that a decrease in energy draw for a light of X% translates into an X% improvement in energy usage is just wrong. (granted that in the summer, A/C must work in the other direction; but my complaint is that our discourse never approaches this level of nuance)
- kaybe 15y ago
  It depends on where the electricity and the gasoline come from, clearly. If the electricity comes from burning coal, not so great, if it comes from wind turbines, great! You can even use the car batteries as storage. And if the gasoline is made from biological materials (3rd generation or above, which means that food production doesn't suffer for it) - great! If it's made from oil, however.. never mind global warming, we'll run out of cheap oil soon enough. All these things are being considered, and the most economic solution will win, I hope. How is this not a rational conclusion base on real evidence?